FHA and VA are urging mortgagees and lenders to extend all possible assistance to borrowers who have been furloughed, laid off or suffered a decline in income because of the government shutdown.
Even due diligence firms such as Allonhill LLC of Denver have trimmed staff because their bank clients no longer need to conduct as many forensic reviews on legacy loan files. Allonhill was recently sold to Stewart Title, which hopes to grow the firm’s presence in the jumbo and nonconforming sectors.
Mortgage banking officials tracking the issue believe that if the agency is going to lower Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loan limits for 2014 it will need to codify those changes by mid- to late October to give lenders time to update their technology systems.
The most important take away from this week’s loan limit reduction news: Congress warning DeMarco that he’d better defer to them on loan limits. His reply: radio silence. Meanwhile, Wells tosses Freddie overboard, sort of.
The Mortgage Bankers Association last week won affirmation of its July victory over the Department of Labor in the trade group’s appeal of a government policy that declared mortgage loan officers did not qualify under the administrative exemption to overtime pay. On Oct. 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia refused to grant a full-court review of its decision exactly three months earlier that sided with the MBA on how the DOL imposed overtime compensation requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The MBA filed...
What if the U.S. government actually defaults on its debt – what would that do to the value of MBS and Treasuries held on the balance sheet of banks? You may not want to know the answer.
In light of the court decision in the overtime pay case, the government must either appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or start a formal rulemaking process to withdraw the 2006 opinion.
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